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Post by Ex on Sept 21, 2019 10:19:16 GMT -5
SargeThanks for carrying the torch. I tried to get through that SNES beat 'em up myself, but it wasn't above average enough to hold my interest. I do respect its source material though, the comic itself was entertaining way back when. I want to play through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project this weekend. Gonna be a little challenging given how busy this weekend is for me, maybe I can do it very late tonight. I've barely had time for gaming at all this week, due to that big work project I mentioned elsewhere on the forum. And I'll be gone most of next week away from all my gaming stuff. On the other hand, I plan to game fervently in October.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 21, 2019 13:33:04 GMT -5
Yeah, really the only reason I went through it was that it always held at least some fascination for me, I guess because of the Nintendo Power feature and enjoying the cartoon. I do wish they'd let me play as a few other on the team, Zealot in particular.
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Post by Ex on Sept 21, 2019 23:13:29 GMT -5
I put about 20 minutes into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project tonight. Got through the first two stages. Eh... it's not as good as I remembered it being. The game does have quite nice graphics, and the programming is very tight; but two things annoyed me. One, I kept accidentally doing the turtle's (in my case Donatello) special move - by pressing A + B simultaneously - and every time you do, that drains your turtle's life. Secondly, the enemy variety was utterly lacking in the first two stages. I mean, one can only kill so many palette swapped foot soldiers before one is bored at the repetition. I'm not saying TMNT3's a bad game, it's probably a lot funner playing this co-op, but for single player it just didn't hold my interest tonight.
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Post by toei on Sept 22, 2019 1:29:14 GMT -5
uuuugh, I wrote a(nother) long post about Batman NES and when I tried to post it I had somehow become logged out so I lost my post.
I ended up beating it after practicing The Joker repeatedly using a save state until I felt pretty confident I could beat him, then went back and played the whole thing from the start without cheating. It turns out that you *can* technically avoid each of his attacks; the lightning is hard to dodge reliably because you can never predict exactly where it'll end, but if you stand in just the right spot to punch him (with just a bit of distance between you and his gun) then step back just a short step right before the first line of lightning hits, you can dodge it *most* of the time, and it's a much more reliable method him than just punching him and hoping he dies before you do. You have to walk back up to him right after that first line hits and hit him, though, because if you wait for the whole lightning attack to stop he'll raise his gun to shoot and the gun itself will hit you. When he runs through you, you have to hit him just before he touches you and you won't take damage. Of course if he's ever a little far from you, you jump towards him, but not too close, because you want to have landed in time to punch him if he runs through you again. In the end I beat him with just two bars of health missing, though it was my fourth attempt of that session.
It's definitely a better game once you know it by heart. I could see myself thinking it was decent if I was just revisiting it years down the line. As a first time experience, and considering all the time I wasted in that unbearable Ninja Gaiden-ish final stage + bosses loop and the almost equally crappy level 3, I'd give a 4/10.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 22, 2019 8:00:55 GMT -5
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Post by Sarge on Sept 22, 2019 12:34:10 GMT -5
Hey, I didn't care much for the game, either, at first. But it turns out getting better at it really improved my appreciation of it.
You're right in that you can pull off a dodge, although I typically did better if I just used the time to keep popping him, because often I'd retreat a little too far, get hit anyway, and put myself in a position to get shot, which is the one thing you can't afford to take a hit from.
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Post by toei on Sept 22, 2019 17:17:01 GMT -5
Yeah, you really have to dodge just barely, that way you can never get shot, and it's almost inevitable that you'll get hit by lightning at least once or twice because it's so irregular. I'm not sure I understand how it's supposed to work. It definitely doesn't always falls at the same spot on the screen, or at the same distance from The Joker, either. The only other logical alternative would be that the first one falls wherever you were standing when it starts, and treating it that way seems to work best for dodging, but I'm pretty sure that's not what it actually does either. It really just seems random. One pattern I did notice, though - when I'd make it there, and on the next attempt (the first with full health), he would always start by firing his gun twice. Then on my last life, he would begin by waiting a bit, then using his thunder attack. I had my save state before this last life, and he always did this; when I restarted the game and played it all from the beginning, the same thing happened. I'm not sure whether the entire sequence isn't programmed in advance, meaning you could theoretically learn the exact thing and beat him without taking damage.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 22, 2019 17:43:06 GMT -5
I noticed that it changed between lives, too. He typically did the double shot when I walked in the first time (no save states), but would often go for the lightning the next time. I guess that would be my last life in many instances. I wonder as well if his opening (or indeed, the whole fight) might be scripted. Would be interesting to see if someone has done a deep dive to see so. (Or maybe I should check out some speed runs; those can potentially have really good information.)
EDIT: Very interesting. I just watched a race (both finished in just over ten minutes), and the Joker strat was pretty cool. So instead of just standing there punching when he calls down the lightning, they jumped up in place to avoid the knockback so they could continue punching. One of them also jumped forward with the lightning instead of retreating, basically punching all the while to keep up invincibility to Joker on contact. I will definitely be trying out the jump-up strategy next time.
EDIT 2: Well, I tried, and I had an easier time with the drop back on the lightning instead. I think I've got the spacing down now, which seems to change a little bit depending on which side Joker's on. That's what trips me up. It's a little further back on the left side than on the right, at least with the save state I used.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 22, 2019 22:56:59 GMT -5
Finally got something in for the month and what a shocker, it's Batman again and a replay... sorry not sorry!
Batman Returns on the SNES would have probably fit nicely for last month's Deja Vu theme for me as well. Been a long time since I played this one! I'm a little shocked to see I still don't own it either! If my RFGen list didn't miss that, I thought I had a cart by now. Growing up I never owned Returns but it was a frequent rental. I remember always striving to 1CC this game back in the day, but I'm not sure if I ever pulled that off. I used up 2 continues myself this replay. It's nice that you get to restart at the very last boss fight with a continue, rather than having to replay the whole last level again like most beat em' ups. Took 52 minutes to knock this out.
It is kind of lazy how you fight Catwoman in two levels back to back AND she can be a brutal Lives sink until you get her moveset down. She's a bit easier in the second encounter because you have a little more room to work around. A lot more of this game was made up of the sidescrolling sections than I remembered, but I dig them a fair bit. Punching stuff in this game feels awesome and my favorite thing in the game is probably being able to throw enemies against the wall when there's a "nearby" one in the background, also hitting any enemy above you in the way. See screenshot 2. Notice how the glass shattered too! The game had tons of cool little details like that, the sword enemies "swallowing" the sword in their idle animations, the jugglers or bomb guys dropping their items if hit by a batarang, etc.
The game does a good job giving off the dark atmosphere the film had, which I wasn't even allowed to see back in the day when I was really young. Anyone remember it was rated R? It's fun to hear a little Contra III in the music and sound of the instruments used. But I love how this game still feels nothing like Turtles in Time to me. Konami always seemed to strive to make all their 16bit games feel radically different and they succeeded. Overall, Batman Returns on the SNES is one of the best beat em' ups on consoles and definitely recommended.
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Post by toei on Sept 23, 2019 0:26:47 GMT -5
Xeogred So did you challenge Hard Mode? Personally this game's Normal mode was enough for me in terms of challenge. Definitely one of the better 16-bit beat-'em-ups.
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